“BROS! Wouldn’t it be TOTES AMAZEBALLS if we went back to our high-school reunion, and all the 18-year-old sluts in town wanted to do us and we couldn’t do them because we were married and stuff so we just beat up their boyfriends and let them blow us while we high-fived each other and listened to Chumbawumba?? SO AWESOME, BRO! Sack tap! Last one to the jetskis sucks dicks!”

That is to say, American Reunion is an extremely specific type of wish fulfillment, and I’m ashamed to say that it mostly worked on me. I am that demo, and I hate myself for it. For years, I’ve ridiculed the Baby Boomers for turning most of pop culture into their own self-congratulatory circle jerk for the last 30 years. Now, I realize that my own generation is going to be EVEN MORE ANNOYING. We’re ALREADY getting nostalgic about shit that happened like FIVE YEARS AGO! As smug and obnoxious and terrible as the Boomers were, at least with them, things happened – the war, the sexual revolution, the Civil Rights movement (you know, debates we’re constantly forced to re-argue long after they’ve lost all relevance, but that’s another story). MY generation’s version of a watershed moment? “HEY, BRO! REMEMBER THE VERVE PIPE??”

WE ARE THE WORST, AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSER. Did you see Ferris Bueller hawking minivans?

BRO! REMEMBER CHICKS?

Let’s be clear, I don’t blame American Reunion for any of this. It was just particularly good at tapping into it. American Pie nostalgia isn’t even really nostalgia FOR American Pie, because let’s face it, American Pie wasn’t good. Can’t Hardly Wait was much better. Like, AmanDUH.

DAMN! Why you gotta waste my flava?

It’s nostalgia people my age have for being younger, and more generally, nostalgia for the times when pop culture and music still had movements, and trends that lasted long enough to engulf the mainstream, when you could still look back and be embarrassed for liking things. Now (thanks to the internet and whatnot) trends last barely long enough to be categorized before there’s a counter-trend, trends and counter-trends run concurrently, and both usually implode or evolve by the time most people are only just hearing about them. So much fractionalization makes it hard for more than three people at a time to remember the same of anything, so naturally we revert to the time just before that, and that’s why I’m terrified of spending the next ten years going DUDE, REMEMBER SKA??! (Sidenote: God, do I ever).

But ignoring cultural trends, I think from an objective standpoint, American Reunion is probably better than American Pie (I realize that’s not the only context in which to judge, but indulge me). The driving force of both are hijinxy set pieces, and directors Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz (who also did the Harold and Kumar movies) are better at staging them than American Pie director Paul Weitz is (he also did Little Fockers). Whereas Weitz tends to be bland and tamped down, Schlossberg and Hurwitz do stoner comedy that’s boldly dumb, like a gag in the latest Harold and Kumar where Danny Trejo shatters a Christmas ornament with a rocket of jizz. In the same way, Stifler’s lines (which are really the only reason to go to an American Pie movie) are sharper in Reunion than in any of the other movies. When he says things like “Let’s dust off that old dick of yours and get you some vag!” I laugh, because that’s vulgarity with flair.

I SMELL A SUPER-MEAN JOKE COMING!

There’s also an interesting element of pop culture satire the franchise never had before, allowed by Oz’s (Chris Klein’s) backstory as an ESPN reporter who just did Dancing With Stars. Neil Patrick Harris has a nice cameo as the show’s host, who sends Oz packing with the Donald Trump-style sendoff, “We saw you jam, now you can scram!”

Remember? SERIOUSLY, DO YOU F*CKING REMEMBER YET? DON'T MAKE US REPEAT IT AGAIN.

Like a lot of comedies, the movie suffers every time it tries for heartfelt drama, as if the same people who like watching Stifler take a dump in an ice chest are going to care about Oz’s unfulfilling marriage. Tara Reid’s only job was to get offended by something stupid every few minutes, rasp whinily, and storm off. Luckily every time she was on screen I zoned out, hoping she’d offer to suck someone’s cock for a thousand dollars. Less as a Lebowski reference than as a meta wink at real life.

"Okay, let's bore the shit out of everyone on three, ready?"

And there was so much late 90s music throughout the entire movie that there were a few times when the characters were having some lame dramatic moment that probably would’ve had me cringing and squirming in my seat had I not been much more focused on whether the song playing behind them was Dishwalla or White Town.

As bad an actor as Chris Klein is (how was he so brilliant in Election?!), he’s Brando compared to Thomas Ian Nicholas. Luckily, Nicholas, like a lot of the other characters, doesn’t have to do much acting, he just has to stand there while we think OH MY GOD IS THAT HENRY ROWENGARTNER?? REMEMBER WHEN HE BROKE HIS ARM AND BECAME A MAJOR LEAGUE PITCHER AND MAN THAT WAS CRAZY OH TO BE YOUNG AGAIN.

Ugh. I hate us. We are like, Scum 41, bros. I don’t blame American Reunion though. It was much better than it should be.

-JLH before she went crazy-go-nuts
-Seth Green, who is always awesome
-Ethan Embry in his second 90’s coming-of-age role (damn the man, save the empire!)
-MJH in a bit role (I’m totally biased – my first crush was on Clarissa)
-MARSHALL FROM HIMYM AS A BIT-ROLE STONER

“…how was he so brilliant in Election?!” – The same reason Sandler was so strong in Punch Drunk Love, a director that knew how to use his limitation as a strength. Keanu Reeves’ best performance, IMO, is in Parenthood where he essentially plays Ted “Theodore” Logan in a dramatic role that requires Ted “Theodore” Logan. Ted as a southern lawyer? Not so much. Ted as Shakespearean villain Don John? Woo boy. Ted as a well-meaning simpleton drag racer? Cha-Ching. [Not that you didn’t mean this rhetorically of course].

I reject the notion that enjoying toilet humor and caring about your friends are mutually exclusive interests. Every holiday my old bros and I fire up a group chat and catch up and share fond memories and heartfelt holiday wishes. Then after we’ve all finished eating we exchange pictures of the poops.

What makes me laugh is, what you guys are joking about happens for real already in the youtube comments section for videos of sampled rap/r&b songs. People actually argue over who sampled who even though it takes 2 seconds to do a google search.

I vividly remember thinking things in the 90s like “Music has mostly started to suck.” Which I still think now…while reminiscing about all that good music from the 90s. Sad. But it really takes you a few years to appreciate certain things, even things you may not have liked at the time because you were too cool for them.

Yeah DEFINITELY not including the boy bands when I say “good music” in the above post.

But there were a ton of good 90s bands as well as artists formed earlier that hit their stride in the 90s. If you dismiss the 90s for N’Sync, you may as well dismiss the 80’s for New Kids on the Block, or the 70’s because of the Bay City Rollers.

Speaking of Can’t Hardly Wait ,they should totes make a special anniversary re-release next year and slightly alter the ending so that instead losing his football scholarship and ending up with a beer belly and a job at a car wash, karma deals Mike Dexter an even worse fate: co-staring at the sparkly dad vampire in The Twilight Saga.

Yeah I’m sure the baby boomers waited like 20 years before they ever felt nostalgic about anything. This dang Interweb is making the kids go all instanostolgic!!! Honestly, you’re an idiot. I’d rather be nostalgic about the Verve Pipe than my parents who insist that they solved racisim. Also, what war did the baby boomers fight? Are you referring to nam? Ska>nam

It’s crazy to think that the stars of “Can’t Hardly Wait” arguably went on to more successful careers than those of “American Pie”. Who would have guessed that? BTW, I saw 3EB last summer and they ROCKED.

Max: I’m too nostalgic. I’ll admit it.
Skippy: We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic for?
Max: I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time.

The criminally under-rated Kicking and Screaming. Not the shitty Will Farrell one.

ehhh….I wouldn’t call it underrated – it’s rated right about where it should be…

Someone called Kicking and Screaming, the “Thinking Man’s Reality Bites.” (I think it was Bill Simmons, or someone equally insufferable). This is a pretty spot-on assessment. Baumbach is way to eager to suck the charm out of his own characters and films. This is what gives his movies such a heavy-handedness that makes people think Kicking and Screaming is more relevant than any other film about the post-college-malaise / Children-of-the-80s.

“OH MY GOD IS THAT HENRY ROWENGARTNER?? REMEMBER WHEN HE BROKE HIS ARM AND BECAME A MAJOR LEAGUE PITCHER AND MAN THAT WAS CRAZY OH TO BE YOUNG AGAIN.”

I can’t believe I didn’t make this connection. you bro just made my night. a natural light shall be toasted in your honor at the Delta Iota Kappa annual beer pong tournament and pig roast jamboree. no one can resist a DIK party.